80 years after liberation, Italian anti-fascists deserve more than solemn remembrance

The Hill

25-04-2025

Italy today celebrates the 80th anniversary of its liberation.
After two-and-a-half years, Italian partisans got rid of both the Nazi German former ally that had occupied half the country and morally rid itself of the already-fallen Italian fascist regime. To put it jokingly: We Italians invented fascism, but luckily we also invented anti-fascism.
Fascism, before it was a regime, was (and remains) a political model based on the overpowering of the other and the utter refusal to resolve conflict peacefully. Both before and after Mussolini's fascists seized power in 1922, the squadristi exercised violence daily in the countryside and in the headquarters of political opponents — torturing, humiliating and killing. Mussolini declared in his famous 1925 speech claiming moral responsibility for the murder of Socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti, 'When two elements are in struggle and are irreducible, the solution is force.'
An anti-fascist movement developed against all this, but it was quickly stifled. Scattered, the rebels of the first hour continued to work against the regime, but their voices sounded faintly.
When King Victor Emmanuel III turned his back on Italy's German ally on Sept. 8, 1943, throwing the country into chaos, anti-fascists took to organizing to repel both the Nazis and the newly formed Italian Social Republic, the puppet state in which Mussolini sought to reassert his power in the northeast. But their anti-fascism was different from the previous one.
It was first of all a less intellectual and thought-out affair. A great many partisans were young renegades and stragglers. They went up into the mountains to join the Resistance driven by ideals as much as by personal confusion. The actual political training took place live, in the heat of battle and in the small community created among them, the microcosm of the 'banda,' the gang. ('Just a f—–g bandit,' the partisan of Luigi Meneghello's 'The Outlaws' memorably shouts to a British officer questioning him about who he was).
Living in gangs, and with the difficulty of communicating among the various groups (many 'relay girls' dealt with this heroically, a legacy too little remembered), the partisans were forced to give themselves autonomous rules. When they liberated larger territories, they gave birth to short-lived but full-fledged republics with advanced constitutions.
Above all, the Italian Resistance offered an entire generation the chance to make radical choices, to decide not only on their deeds but on the ultimate fate of a continent battered by violence. In the absence of governing powers to which they could delegate responsibility, they took it on in full — without abdicating their own youth. The partisans fought and danced, and laughed, and freely created their own lives after years of regimented education. It was very hard yet also, as many remember, very exciting.
Such narrative erases the martyr-like appearance so typical of public rhetoric, and restores them in their truth: young men and women who sacrificed everything to liberate their homeland, but also to build a new world. Not that there was agreement on its realization. Communists, Catholics and others had conflicting views, but all adhered to the core idea of denying fascism both as a totalitarian political structure and as the vindication of violence as a lifestyle.
If this were only an Italian national fight, the value of Apr. 25 would be limited, and this article not needed. Instead, the aims and gestures of partisans must take on a universal character. Before he was shot by the Nazis, a teenage Italian freedom fighter kissed one of them and smilingly told him, 'I die for you too. Long live free Germany!'
Today, the idea of historical fascism returning in full is untenable. But the presence of the drives that defined fascism persist: contempt for democracy, smug admiration of force, totalitarian aspiration and expansionist intent. So I would like to reiterate the goodness of anti-fascism as a method and ideal, even in the absence of 'true fascism,' however one wishes to understand it.
Europe, as has been said in recent days, is at a historic crossroads. But in fact it has been at this crossroads for years. In facing this challenge, the initiative cannot be left solely to the 'upper echelons' and international politics. Blindly delegating political action to them would mean giving into the indifference and fatigue that circulated long before the recent outbreak of Russian aggression.
So yes, the moment is crucial and very difficult — but also harbors great opportunities. In 1946, Albert Camus expressed it memorably: 'We can't pretend to escape from history for we are in history. We can only aspire to do battle in the arena of history to save from it that part of man which does not belong to it.' This is 'the obligation each person incurs with regard to others,' which must however be 'balanced by time for reflection, pleasure, and the happiness every person owes themselves.'
This is nothing to be optimistic about, just as Camus was not. But his stark realism did not prevent him from cultivating a modest utopia — and from inviting every person to fight for it, building small, active groups that can influence the world from below.
In this regard, the Italian partisans give us an invaluable moral lesson. They refused both the easy indifference that afflicted the majority of the population, and the proxy of commitment to the Allied forces alone. They immediately acted because they couldn't stand the situation anymore, and did it with humanity, courage and responsibility. What a contrast to today's general refusal to be held accountable! Without taking refuge in some idea of moral sanctity, the partisans took up the fight when necessary, and paid its price.
So we should not remember the partisans standing still in a photograph, but in motion. In fact, Apr. 25, 1945 did not mark the end of the war — it launched the insurrection of the cities of northern Italy. That helped the forces of resistance to accredit and legitimize themselves, also through a display of force, to the Allies. Yet the symbolic meaning stands intact: It is not the victory that is celebrated, but the liberation process, the very conflict.
Historical perspective helps to avoid making erroneous comparisons and normalizing the partisan experience. Surely Italy has not been up to the Resistance over the last 80 years. Yet such critical distance can also create a trap: to consider these facts accomplished and buried, simply to be studied and known — available only as the objects in a moral museum.
They are not. The living experience of Apr. 25 gives us reasons to undertake the hard task of being better.